La Maddalena, 22/25 February 1793

In the beginning of 1793 the Revolutionary Directory in
Paris planned to attack the Kingdom of Sardinia and punish
King Vittorio Amedeo of Savoia, strong enemy of the
revolution and its passwords:
"Liberté,Egalité,Fraternité"

The project was to move the Army of the Alps against
Piedmont across the Alps, while on the other side, a fleet
had to invade Sardinia.

The principal objective of the campaign was the city of
Cagliari. In order to get it , a fleet sailed from Tolone
(Toulon) to Ajaccio commanded by Admiral L. Jean
Truguet.

This fleet was completely defeated at Cagliari and other
sites of the south of Sardinia during a week of fighting,
from 14th to 22th of February. This fact gave great joy to
Great Britain.

Great Britain was in fact fully interested to maintain an
indirect control over Sardinia, being in contact with the
corsican independentist led by old local hero Pasquale
Paoli. (He would like much more to commit Corse to the
British Crown than to France, though he had sworn fidelity
to the Revolutionary Government and was the Military
Commander of the National Guard of the island, directly
nominated by Paris.)

In those days, a young (not yet 24 years old) Lieutenant
Colonel, Napoleone di Buonaparte (at the Italian way , as
he'll change his name in Bonaparte in 1796, at the beginning
of the first Campaign of Italy) was in Corse, his birthland,
commanding two companies of Corsican volunteers of the
Guard.

Buonaparte in those days supported the "French Party",
faithful to Paris, in opposition to the Paoli's
"Independentist."

A second, minor, expedition had to attack and invade the
Island of La Maddalena, the biggest island of the
archipelago between Sardinia and Corse.

At the end of the 18th century the population of La
Maddalena amounted to 867 . They originally came from Corse.
Their principal occupation, besides fishing, was
smuggling.

In that period La Maddalena was already an important
naval base for operations in Mediterranean Sea: Horatio
Nelson himself, in 1804, stayed there for a short time with
his fleet at the beginning of the operations that ended at
Trafalgar.

When the news about a naval expedition from revolutionary
France arrived in Sardinia, soon the Clergy, very
influential on the island, organised the armed resistance of
the population. Cardinals, Bishops and Priests of every town
and village called the people to a sort of "new crusade"
against the "Devil" represented by the revolutionary
Army.

Nothing was more dangerous for the traditional Clergy
than the idea's supported by the French since 1789: it
meant, first of all, the abolition of all privileges and the
confiscation of all its properties.

In January , on Major Riccio's, the military commander of
the island, request two companies of Fusiliers of the Swiss
Regiment "Courten," about 400 soldiers, moved from Sassari
to La Maddalena. Also about others 100 volunteers came from
the north of Sardinia.

In the port of Cala Gavetta, the natural small bay in the
south side of the island, some old ships of the Royal
Sardinian Navy were mooring, waiting for their demolition.
This secondary column was composed by 150 regular soldiers
and 450 volunteers with four cannons of Colonel Quenza's
battalion. They had embarked on sixteen small boats escorted
by only one corvette. The Commander in Chief of the
expedition was Pietro Paolo Colonna-Cesari, Paoli's
nephew.

Buonaparte was on board of "La Fauvette," the corvette
with his volunteers companies of the National Guard. These
soldiers were no professionals, not trained, not motivated
and first of all, not paid neither equipped. It was a poor
little army!

Just few days before the future "Petit Caporal" had to
repress an attempt of mutiny in the port of Bonifacio, as
the troops didn't realize why they had to fight against
Sardinia and La Maddalena in particular for the ancient
blood and cultural ties that joined together the two
islands. Moreover the soldiers were afraid to navigate with
the famous North-West wind that was raging in those days
(italian:Maestrale,french: Mistral). The navigation from
Bonifacio to Sardinia is not a long way, but this is maybe
the most windy and stormy stretch of sea in all the
Mediterranean: the so-called "Bocche di Bonifacio"
(Bonifacio's mouth).

That cold day of February the weather surely did not help
the expedition: the wind was blowing more and more furiously
and the sea kept on increasing its violence. The morale of
the troops was shaked further on by the adverse
condition.

A first attempt of crossing was jammed by the bad
condition of the sea, forcing the flotilla to a not very
honourable retreat to the departure harbor of Bonifacio.

Finally, the expedition sailed from Bonifacio the 22 of
February at 9 a.m. Despite the strength of the wind and sea,
they finally reached the isle of Spargi, where the men
rested for the crossing and enjoyed roasting some animals
found to pasture on the island.

After some time the flotilla moved joining the position
in front of the coast at Punta Li Tegghj and tried a first
assault but was repulsed by the furious fire of the coastal
batteries.

The same night Napoleon disembarked from La Fauvette with
his men and his small battery of three pieces of canon on
the island of Santo Stefano, just in front of the small town
of La Maddalena, from which it was separated by a stretch of
sea , only 700 metres wide. A true rain and wind storm
accompanied the landing of the assailants.

Thanks to a violent volley of musketry and some shot of
cannon they succeeded to get possession of a squared thick
tower that was on the little island, defended by a small
garrison of 25 men. 17 of these were taken prisoners, while
one of them, a certain Salvatore Ornano, was able to escape
swimming to La Maddalena, giving the alarm and showing the
positions reached by the French-Corsican.

Buonaparte would have immediately ordered to continue the
assault on La Maddalena during the same night, taking
advantage of the surprise, but the commander Colonna Cesari
was of a quite different opinion: he feared the mutiny by a
part of the soldiers, harshly tired by the crossing and by
the fights for the capture of Santo Stefano. This decision
was harshly contested by Buonaparte who quarreled furiously
with Colonna Cesari, calling him incapable and unfit.

After this violent dispute with the commander of the
expedition, Buonaparte labored with his men under the rain,
all the night long, in order to transport a 36' siege-mortar
on the rock La Puntarella and aim it against the inhabited
area just in front of it.

The morning of the 23, Sunday, Buonaparte ordered to
start the bombardment of La Maddalena. The first shot hit
the roof of the church of Santa Maria Maddalena, provoking
the frightened escape of the population who was taking
refuge there. The second bomb hit the façade of the
church on the right edge, while the third and the fourth hit
the roofs of two neighboring houses. The fifth bullet
exploded just in the center of the church square, while the
next entered the window of the church and exploded at the
feet of the statue of Santa Maria Maddalena but without
provoking serious damages.

The bombardment continued precisely: the official reports
of the Sardinian Navy stated that at least 1050 shots of
cannon felt all over La Maddalena during the French attack.
At least 80 houses were destroyed or seriously damaged.

The cannonade lasted through all the day long and
continued during the night with incendiary balls that caused
ulterior damages to the village.

After some brief pause, the bombardment was continued for
whole the 24 and the 25 too: the provoked damages were
really huge: bursts, fires, destructions and collapses put
the heroic resistance of the islanders in serious
danger.

The fire in the lumber storages in the harbor of Cala
Gavetta seemed to deal a definitive blow and weaken the
endurance of the defenders.

The fire of the battery guided by Buonaparte had
destroyed or made useless the coastal batteries of the
Sardinians. These batteries had created serious problems to
the French ships, especially for La Fauvette which had been
hit several times by the shot of the coastal cannon. The 22
and 23 the ship was fired upon by the batteries of La
Maddalena that had been transported by sea at Punta Li
Tegghj during the night of the 22 by Quartemaster Domenico
Millelire.

The morning of the 24 the corvet was hit many times by
batteries set at Capo d'Orso and Palau, on the Sardinian
coast (these were the cannons transported during the night
by the same Domenico Millelire on his boat) and suffered
serious damages to the mast. That forced the ship to take
shelter in the roadstead of Villa Marina. Here, the other
smaller ships of the expedition gathered together.

On the 24, the small flotilla, protected by the cannons
of La Fauvette, sailed out of the roadstead in order to
approach the coast of the island of Caprera crossing the
strait Della Moneta and so attempt a landing.

This manoeuvre had been guessed by the islanders, which
placed a squad of 65 voluntary riflemen along the coast of
the strait. With their desperate gunfire they succeeded to
repel the landing attempt.

The French retried the following day, the 25th. La
Fauvette sailed closer to the shore to cover the other units
but it suffered several casualties on deck because of the
Sardinian volleys (the official reports reported of about
201 men dead in that fight).

At the same time Domenico Millelire, commanding his small
boat and fourteen men on the oars, a gunner and a man at the
forge for making the bullets incendiary, went at the rear of
the attacking ships aiming at the masts of two "feluccas"
that were facing him.

That provoked big panic and discouragement among the
French, already weary and little motivated . La Fauvette ran
away precipitately toward the open sea. Colonna Cesari sent
to Buonaparte who was still on shore, the order to
immediately withdrawal abandoning his whole equipments and
implements.

Dismayed for this order, the young officer tried to save
at least his guns and ordered his men to transport them on
the beach to embark them.

Under heavy rains and a raging wind he helped the
artillerymen in the hard enterprise but once arrived on the
beach he was forced to abandon his canon because the sailors
of La Fauvette refused to load them on board to waste no
more time. The escape was so precipitous that Buonaparte
couldn't do anything else than leave the cannons to be able
to save himself and his men from capture.

Domenico Millelire, having loaded others voluntaries on
the Sardinian coast had disembarked with these men on the
island of Santo Stefano, on its south side. With volleys of
musketry the Sardinian reconquered the tower of the island
taking some prisoner too.

A soldier of the Swiss regiment, a certain Asmard,
distinguishes himself in this work, throwing down to
extinguish with his own body the fuse that Buonaparte had
lit to set off the powder-magazine in the tower of Villa
Marina. Buonaparte really risked of being made prisoner!

Returning to Bonifacio Buonaparte and his colleague,
Lieutenant Colonel Quenza , wrote a detailed report for the
Minister of War in Paris. They blamed the failiure on
Colonna Cesari's behavior on the bases of the secret orders
that he had received from Pasquale Paoli; orders that
planned the failure of the mission against Sardinia to
favour the separation of Corsica from France and the
approach and the annexation to England.

On the base of that report, the French Government accused
Paoli and his party of high treason. Paoli went into hiding
to avoid arrest and in Corte the new Corsican Constituent
Assembly, established by him to put the island under the
protection of the English Crown. In October 1795 he went to
London, where he lived as a King's pensioner until his
death, the 5th of February 1807.

Quartermaster Domenico Millelire, hero of the days, was
decorated as recompense with the first gold medal of the
Reign of Sardinia and a life annuity of 300 Lire.

The soldier Asmard, of the Regiment Courten, received a
silver medal and was promoted Lieutenant. He refused the
commision but accepted the wages saying "...the
responsibility of the command can be taken by the one who
like it..."

These days not much remain to be seen from this episode,
but anyway the site is really marvellous.

The archipelago is made by seven islands plus several
others small rocks. The principal, and the only inhabited is
La Maddalena, an important naval base of the Italian Navy
and also base for American nuclear submarines.

It is even an exclusive resort for marine activity and
sports, as wind-sailing, diving, fishing etc.

In the Town hall one of the cannonball launched by
Buonaparte in 1793 is on display.

Just in front of it is the church of Santa Maria
Maddalena, where in the sacristy are conserved two
candlesticks and a crucifix given by Nelson, and his
autograph from the "Victory" before Trafalgar.

Very important and really interesting is the Civic Museum
where are conserved many objects (expecially ancient vases
and amphoras) discovered in the wreck of a Roman ship sank
in 200 B.C.

La Maddalena is connected with Sardinia by a
ferry-service departing from Palau. Caprera is the second
island of importance. It was the exclusive refuge for
Italian Risorgimental hero Giuseppe Garibaldi. He lived here
after he retired to private life until his death in 1882.
You can visit his house and the Museum of his life.

On the island of Santo Stefano, aside of being a tourist
village, remains the S.George tower, from whom Buonaparte
fired toward La Maddalena, while the east-side of the island
is occupied by the American naval base.

The others islands, Spargi, Santa Maria, Budelli e
Razzoli are authentic marine paradises where you can see the
most attractive beaches and shorelines in all the
Mediterranean Sea, nothing less than more famous Caribbean
or Pacific sites.